Now for the second part of Victorias porn career.
Originally its content should have been part of my post here and i am recurring on topics i already made there, so probably they should be read together.
In case you can't be bothered to read old posts, it's about getting Victorias porn career into chronological order, because her content is widely spread throughout the game and not accessible on every path. I will provide screenshots, sometimes of older versions aswell to show their evolution, and also share a quick summary and my thoughts on them.
Urgh, this also took again an awfully amount of time, so i have again to postpone the (hopefully) last part.
Well, it is what it is, there are worser activities to spend ones time (bad AVNs come to mind).
Cya soon!
As a final remark on this excellently executed mini-arc, i'd like to bring to your attention, that this time, Edwin is indeed in possession of some raw footage of the shoot, very likely pulled from the internet, since he watches the video on his computer. Thus the presence of timestamps are justified throughout those images, he actually remembers these with time and date.
I wonder who wouldandcould post raw footage of a gangbang featuring a still amateurish mother on the internet?
Looks like an inside job to me...
Perhaps you guys get now my fascination with Victorias past in porn, it's not all about the fetish.
While I very much appreciate your attention to detail over the time codes, on this part I think you lost me. The MC doesn't have "raw" footage of the shoot, the footage he's looking at is the shoot. It's a semi-amateur porn vid from the late aughts; time stamps like that were common to give the video an unpolished feel. I see no reason to read anything more into it. Indeed, given how staged "amateur" porn videos are, I'm reluctant to read too much into any aspect of these scenes - even when they seem to line up with what we know of Victoria's life. The events obviously happened, but I'd trust evidence outside the videos (even second hand info like the MC's summaries) over the details within scene itself.
As for Victoria's porn career having some connection to the Club, personally, I'd be extremely disappointed if that happens. It would weaken the human story at the core of Victoria (and her relationship with the MC) tremendously. IMHO, it's this sort of overly incestuous intertwining of details (excuse the pun) that makes potentially well-developed worlds fall flat. The setting becomes very small when all the threads turn out to be connected. Better to leave some of the threads separate so we focus on how they interweave rather than speculate about what they do offscreen.
That's not to say you can't have plot twists or the like, but those twists can have profound implications when they hit a cornerstone to the main character's backstory. If Victoria was already involved with the Club, then the carefully structured dichotomy between her and Kathleen (mirroring the struggle within the MC himself) will devolve into a morass of moral relativity. The MC fretting over whether he'll be a good person when he's finally in a position to prove it becomes moot, because it turns out good and bad actions are merely a question of context.
I say better to let Victoria be just a woman who made a bunch of porn videos because she needed the money to raise her kid properly. She's the sort of person who could have fallen into Kathleen's web, not someone who did. The former makes her a warning, which ups the stakes as the MC is increasingly pushed towards the role of spider. The latter dilutes the stakes by adding another Club subplot we'll need to sort out.
That's how I see it anyway. But we'll see what happens. If TD does wind up going down that road, he's certainly earned enough deference for me to give it a try.
Sry, ename144, i can't find the word "aughts". Did you mean eighties by any chance? Else i have a bit difficulties to understand the rest of your post.
Thank you in advance.
Sry, ename144, i can't find the word "aughts". Did you mean eighties by any chance? Else i have a bit difficulties to understand the rest of your post.
Thank you in advance.
Sry, ename144, i can't find the word "aughts". Did you mean eighties by any chance? Else i have a bit difficulties to understand the rest of your post.
Thank you in advance.
"Aughts" is the slang term for the decade from 2000-2009. It's the equivalent of the "Eighties," just for a different time period. The name derives from the word aught, which means 0.
I think here you did -at least partly- misunderstood to what "inside job" was meant to reference:
If this wasn't a semi-amateur porn vid with an unpolished feel, but indeed a leaked raw footage, i was pointing at the crew members of said shoot and especially the director of the video. And, yes, i do believe this 'could' have been one of our antagonists, i don't see a real problem with that.
As for the club as an existing business, i believe we have already established it wasn't up and running at that point in time. So no involvement with the club per se.
However all our old owners had a life before the club, and i don't believe their actions (Chuck isn't a pervert only since his retirement) and jobs (porn-producer and pimp for 30 years, August) and preferences (Kat was a sadist since early childhood) have changed much in the past 15 to 20 years. It's just since the opening of the club they can pursue their various interests on a much more reliable basis with the added bonus of earning a lot of hard, cold cash.
Don't forget prostitutes make up a one digit percentage of a given population, and porn-models are even rarer (one of the more comprehensive porn database proudly features "more than 50.000 models" including glam-models (only softcore content) worldwide and spanning a timeframe of roughly 30 years). What i want to say is: meeting an actual porn-starlet is a rare ocurrence, if you don't actively seek them out, and at any given time i'd expect i.e. for the USA only a few thousand models in this business, compared to probably hundreds of thousand prostitutes.
Now not every porn-model needs her own producer or director so these numbers are again a tiny fraction of that, and they tend to flock together in places like Los-Angeles or Miami (from the top of the head i could recall only one or -tops- two cities in my country featuring a porn industry, and one of those happens to be the capital).
In the end it's a small, very small industry on the production side (head count wise), and i wouldn't be surprised if August, for instance, ends up as the only one in Morehead Hills. At least we can be sure he does and did know his fellow entrepeneurs in this business in his area.
Nonetheless your interjection is absolutely valid, in that case you just need to ditch my last two sentences of the upper paragraph, the other point i made stays untouched:
Edwin has access to one of his mothers videos with timestamps. And his memories include them.
I think here you did -at least partly- misunderstood to what "inside job" was meant to reference:
If this wasn't a semi-amateur porn vid with an unpolished feel, but indeed a leaked raw footage, i was pointing at the crew members of said shoot and especially the director of the video. And, yes, i do believe this 'could' have been one of our antagonists, i don't see a real problem with that.
As for the club as an existing business, i believe we have already established it wasn't up and running at that point in time. So no involvement with the club per se.
However all our old owners had a life before the club, and i don't believe their actions (Chuck isn't a pervert only since his retirement) and jobs (porn-producer and pimp for 30 years, August) and preferences (Kat was a sadist since early childhood) have changed much in the past 15 to 20 years. It's just since the opening of the club they can pursue their various interests on a much more reliable basis with the added bonus of earning a lot of hard, cold cash.
Don't forget prostitutes make up a one digit percentage of a given population, and porn-models are even rarer (one of the more comprehensive porn database proudly features "more than 50.000 models" including glam-models (only softcore content) worldwide and spanning a timeframe of roughly 30 years). What i want to say is: meeting an actual porn-starlet is a rare ocurrence, if you don't actively seek them out, and at any given time i'd expect i.e. for the USA a few thousand models in this business, compared to probably hundreds of thousand prostitutes.
Now not every porn-model needs her own producer or director so these numbers are again a tiny fraction of that, and they tend to flock together in places like Los-Angeles or Miami (from the top of the head i could recall only one or -tops- two cities in my country featuring a porn industry, and one of those happens to be the capital).
In the end it's a small, very small industry on the production side (head count wise), and i wouldn't be surprised if August, for instance, ends up as the only one in Morehead Hills. At least we can be sure he does and did know his fellow entrepeneurs in this business in his area.
Sorry, I was using 'Club' a little informally there. I'm aware the Carnation Club itself seems to be newer than Victoria's old videos (and we know for certain the Summer Exhibition is only 5 years old). I was using Club as shorthand for "the people behind the Club doing the same sorts of thing they do now," but I should have specified that.
As for not seeing a problem with it, I'm the opposite: I see no benefit to it. Sure, you can say the porn biz is small (at least in a place like Baltimore) so it's not surprising they'd know each other, but I'd counter it's not a very public community either. Just because you work close by doesn't mean you'll be aware of everyone in the field, much less willing to collaborate with them.
More importantly, my concerns about conflating Victoria's backstory with the Club remain. If Victoria was involved with run-of-the-mill small time porn producers, she serves as an important contrast to the way the Club (Kat in particular) treats its girls. Victoria had to endure some tough stuff, but she got what she needed from it and emerged intact. Kat, on the other hand, likes to break her toys once she's done playing with them. This way, the MC faces an actual choice: defy Kat and treat the girls more like those small time pornos treated Victoria, or embrace Kathleen's mindset and risk ruining the lives of people like him and his mom in the process.
But if Victoria was involved in the same sort of setup as the Carnations and the house girls, there's no longer a stark choice. Treating the girls like his mom was treated is apparently all in good fun, so it's now just a case of angsting about whether the new girls will be as strong as the old girls. IMHO, that's a much weaker fit with the themes the game has expressed thus far.
Now I suppose you could try to thread the needle and say Victoria DID work with small time porn producers, it just turns out that one of them was August. This could preserve the dichotomy by making it much more about Kathleen (and possibly Chuck's) influence on August in specific rather than the Club as a whole. But what does that add to the story? Maybe you could make August more sympathetic this way, but IMHO that feels weak. Alternatively you could try to spin this into some sort of conflict between the MC and August, but that feels redundant with Hana's arc. To me, any of the new subplots you could create from this revelation are less interesting than exploring the club dynamics as we currently understand them.
As I said before, this sort of twist shrinks the world without offering any clear thematic advantages.
Nonetheless your interjection is absolutely valid, in that case you just need to ditch my last two sentences of the upper paragraph, the other point i made stays untouched:
Edwin has access to one of his mothers videos with timestamps. And his memories include them.
This seems to be at the root of what I don't understand. Why wouldn't the MC remember the scenes with the timestamp? He wasn't present at the shoot, all he's seen is the video with the timestamp included.
Sure, he might imagine the scene with or without the timestamp depending on how he's contextualizing it at the time, but I'm not sure it's wise to read too far into the presence or absence of the timestamp in a given frame because that gets very speculative. Victoria's porn scenes are a relatively small part of the game thus far and we haven't delved too deeply into the MC's feelings on them. Plus, we already know there have been some errors in these scenes. Painstaking analysis of each frame of the porn vids strikes me as similar to using an ultrapowerful zoom to examine a grainy picture: more likely to amplify noise than signal.
Technically there's a small coda with Ian at the end, but Hana's date and aftermath is the last major scene of the current update (assuming you choose to pursue Hana, obviously).
This is the discussion i was hoping for, thanks for taking my bait!
There are several points in your post worth looking into further, but i'll start with this one:
Because he remembers his mother's casting with timestamps, he wasn't present at that shoot neither, all he's seen was the DVD without timestamps included. More than half of that content is from Edwin recurring to Victorias casting during Rosalinds gonzo and conducting this shoot in a similar way.
There shouldn't be any timestamps in there as far as he is concerned, i was just pointing out in the case of the 'yellow' video they are justified, whereas in the casting memories of him they are not.
Also to reiterate, since he cannot falsify her age declaration in the casting due missing timestamps in hisavailable video, as far as he is concerned there are years between her casting and the second video. Edwin doesn't know (we don't know either for sure, that's true) how many videos she did between these two ones, but to him it looks like she sustained their little family starting shortly after his fathers death (which is likely not correct), forced by the dire circumstances, with enduring nasty shit.
And for this he is immensively grateful towards her, overlooking obvious flaws in her motherhood, and even adjusting his own future because of that.
Edwin is very fond of physics, for instance, but instead going down a path to become a physicist or engineer, which would align more closely with his interests, he feels compelled to somehow repay his mom for her sacrifices (at one point he imagines him and Victoria on their own boat, carefree):
the income differences of these career paths are significant:
entry level physicist's annual income median for Baltimore: ~ 72.000$
entry level technical engineer's annual income median: ~ 74.000$
entry level general practitioner's annual income median: ~ 230.000$ (!)
As you can see from those numbers it looks like a GP is more suited in realizing this dream, than professions closer to his genuine interests.
Would Edwin have chosen this career path, if he didn't feel like he ows his mother something?
Of course there is a mystery about Victorias porn career, and knowing exactly when she started, why she started, how long she was in and who had their fingers in that development is pivotal for Edwins stance towards the carnations, the club and the owners and his general outlook on life.
And most important: will he, in the upcoming future events, still be able to fall back on Victoria as a guiding, soothing and grounding figure who kept his ethics in check sofar, if his perception of his Mother changes.
Edwins development as a child teenager was undoubtedly damaged by her lifestyle (ugh, that sounds harsh) and his findings, and it permeates his character to this day.
no, she was damaged in that process and bears the scars and consequences (like her difficulties to get a regular job) to this day. It definitely has affected her relation to Edwin on her side also.
Victoria is now aware of her shortcomings towards her son during this time and does her best to make up for it. As other members have already pointed out in this thread: she just should have worked harder instead choosing to do porn.
I admit i am playing a little bit devil's advocate here, because my personal view on Vicky isn't that bleak.
More importantly, my concerns about conflating Victoria's backstory with the Club remain. If Victoria was involved with run-of-the-mill small time porn producers, she serves as an important contrast to the way the Club (Kat in particular) treats its girls.
'they' treated her also (equally) in a despicable way, like we already have seen in the first two reviews and which i will try to emphasize in my review of Victoria's third pornshoot.
Victoria could have been easily broken by those 'small time pornos' like many other women who get into sex-work, i have atm no data on this, but i expect the numbers of drug-addiction, alcoholism and depression in this sub-populace are much higher than its prevalence in the general public. Emerging somewhat 'intact' from this experience is Victorias merit alone, and not a special accomplishment of those porn producers. Breaking intentionally or not doesn't matter for the toy, if the result is the same.
Also there is no guarantee that Kathleen always succeeds in her endeavour, much like Harper who has undergone Kat's and other club members treatment multiple times by now, unbroken. Likewise Victoria could have prevailed. And with or without our (Edwins) help perhaps the current Carnations also.
The difference between breaking something intentionally or not is in the degree of personal guilt of the breaker.
There is a difference between first degree murder and manslaughter.
So, as far Edwin is concerned those two decisions still bear a tremendous amount of weight.
As for those other points i'll probably adress them in some other post, in order to not overcrowd this one.
Cheers ename144, always a pleasure to spar with you!
It's a little bit a curse that we are able to track the exact amount of content in a single update, because players of the finished game can't make this distinction. My ch4upd1 was very short compared to what is available, but i can't complain since that was my choice in the past.
To be honest, the only reason I wanted to write a porn game is to force unsubtle and blatant movie references on people. One of my greatest joys from development is knowing that GIL had to spend a few hours of his limited time on this planet recreating the ending scene of Hard Ticket to Hawaii to satiate my stupid fucking impulses.
This is the discussion i was hoping for, thanks for taking my bait!
There are several points in your post worth looking into further, but i'll start with this one:
Because he remembers his mother's casting with timestamps, he wasn't present at that shoot neither, all he's seen was the DVD without timestamps included. More than half of that content is from Edwin recurring to Victorias casting during Rosalinds gonzo and conducting this shoot in a similar way.
There shouldn't be any timestamps in there as far as he is concerned, i was just pointing out in the case of the 'yellow' video they are justified, whereas in the casting memories of him they are not.
That's an extremely speculative statement. First, because we can't ignore the possibility that the lack of timestamp was an error in the game. Second, because there's no reason the 'casting' shoot couldn't use multiple cameras, only one of which had the time code. As you noted, we see a camera in some of the shots. You assumed that was proof the MC had behind the scenes footage. Occam's razor suggests shoot included faux-BTS footage to help sell the illusion that it was real. This is what I meant when I said I wouldn't read too much into those videos.
Also to reiterate, since he cannot falsify her age declaration in the casting due missing timestamps in hisavailable video, as far as he is concerned there are years between her casting and the second video. Edwin doesn't know (we don't know either for sure, that's true) how many videos she did between these two ones, but to him it looks like she sustained their little family starting shortly after his fathers death (which is likely not correct), forced by the dire circumstances, with enduring nasty shit.
And for this he is immensively grateful towards her, overlooking obvious flaws in her motherhood, and even adjusting his own future because of that.
I think you're ignoring the actual game in favor of your preferred interpretation. AFAICT, nothing in the video clips we've seen calls the MC's story into question.
*IF* we accept Victoria's stated age in her 'debut' video and assume the timestamp is accurate, it took place 14-15 years ago. [The game lists her as 46 currently and she says she was 31 at the time of shooting; since the video was shot in January and Week 1 starts on June 1, it would be 15 years ago if her birthday was between January and June, or 14 years ago otherwise. ] The MC just had his 22nd birthday at the end of Week 1, and we know his father died when he was 6 (i.e. 15-16 years before the game). That seems fully compatible with the MC's summary of his mom's porn career to Hana: "For a brief time after [my father died], she made a living on her back."
Edwin is very fond of physics, for instance, but instead going down a path to become a physicist or engineer, which would align more closely with his interests, he feels compelled to somehow repay his mom for her sacrifices (at one point he imagines him and Victoria on their own boat, carefree):
the income differences of these career paths are significant:
entry level physicist's annual income median for Baltimore: ~ 72.000$
entry level technical engineer's annual income median: ~ 74.000$
entry level general practitioner's annual income median: ~ 230.000$ (!)
As you can see from those numbers it looks like a GP is more suited in realizing this dream, than professions closer to his genuine interests.
Would Edwin have chosen this career path, if he didn't feel like he ows his mother something?
I'm having a lot of problems using that site, but even if we go with these numbers, it's not really a fair comparison. An entry-level GP not only needs an MD, they also need to complete their residency. In contrast, an entry level 'technical' engineer only needs a BS, possibly even an associate's degree. So not only does the GP require a lot more money for education, they also need to wait longer before they can start earning the salary.
But that's all beside the point because I'm unaware of any indication in the game that the MC actually wants to be a physicist or engineer. In fact, as I recall he specifically mentions wanting to be a doctor because of the way they tried to help his father. This seems to be an argument you spun up out of nothing.
Edwins development as a child teenager was undoubtedly damaged by her lifestyle (ugh, that sounds harsh) and his findings, and it permeates his character to this day.
That's circular reasoning. You assert that the MC's life must have been damaged by Victoria's actions and thus it will be a major point point when he's forced to reconcile his mental image of her with reality. But you have no actual evidence of the alleged harm to the MC.
I'm certain that his father's death had a profound impact on his life (and almost certainly a negative one), but no one had any control over that - least of all Victoria. The question is whether she could have done a better job than she did with the options available to her. Given that she managed to raise the MC into generally well-adjusted young adult on his way to becoming a doctor, I'd say she did fairly well for a single mother with no familial support. I'm certainly not prepared to second guess her choices just because one of them involved making pornos.
Likewise and contrary to your assumption
no, she was damaged in that process and bears the scars and consequences (like her difficulties to get a regular job) to this day. It definitely has affected her relation to Edwin on her side also.
Victoria is now aware of her shortcomings towards her son during this time and does her best to make up for it. As other members have already pointed out in this thread: she just should have worked harder instead choosing to do porn.
I admit i am playing a little bit devil's advocate here, because my personal view on Vicky isn't that bleak.
Intact doesn't mean unscathed, just that she's still a healthy woman with an acceptable life - and a son she loves very much. You say she's trying to make up for her shortcomings, but it's just as likely she's always been this way. I can be cynical, sure, but I need a solid reason not to take a mother's devotion to her son at face value. 'She did something distasteful to make ends meet' is not a solid reason.
'they' treated her also (equally) in a despicable way, like we already have seen in the first two reviews and which i will try to emphasize in my review of Victoria's third pornshoot.
Victoria could have been easily broken by those 'small time pornos' like many other women who get into sex-work, i have atm no data on this, but i expect the numbers of drug-addiction, alcoholism and depression in this sub-populace are much higher than its prevalence in the general public. Emerging somewhat 'intact' from this experience is Victorias merit alone, and not a special accomplishment of those porn producers. Breaking intentionally or not doesn't matter for the toy, if the result is the same.
Also there is no guarantee that Kathleen always succeeds in her endeavour, much like Harper who has undergone Kat's and other club members treatment multiple times by now, unbroken. Likewise Victoria could have prevailed. And with or without our (Edwins) help perhaps the current Carnations also.
Please. 'They' degraded her in a porn video; that's hardly worth commenting on. They didn't break out tarantulas, or arrange a fake interview with Victoria's boss, or make her shoot the porno in a park near her home. And again, that's assuming what we see on film was genuine, rather than staged for the camera.
Meanwhile Kat is using people for clandestine drug tests. It's not even in the same league.
The difference between breaking something intentionally or not is in the degree of personal guilt of the breaker.
There is a difference between first degree murder and manslaughter.
So, as far Edwin is concerned those two decisions still bear a tremendous amount of weight.
True. But I'd argue there's an even bigger difference between negligent homicide and not getting someone killed in the first place, which is more what I was going for.
As for those other points i'll probably adress them in some other post, in order to not overcrowd this one.
Cheers ename144, always a pleasure to spar with you!
Just started this game and noticed a 1:1 Shrine of Azura in the building. Was that intentional or what? I love finding weird easter eggs like that so I hope there's more.
I try to base my findings on content in the current iteration of PC, which led, for instance, me recognizing her last, high-class video as real, a fact which i heavily disputed in ch3upd4.
I am aware this is a work-in-progress and everything is still subject to change.
However, between ch3upd3, ch3upd4 and ch4upd1 TD1900 already made some considerable effort to set those timestamps right, although it looks like as some of them are still faulty.
So, yes, it's not impossible these images* contain still an error, but since they survived untouched three updates i am inclined to believe they are presented as intended. Until further alteration, your fallback on a possible error is more speculative than my assumption that they are correct.
*: For reference, i am talking about w1_3661 to w1_3666, it's the scene when Edwin watches her video after the first exhibition, during which he is interrupted by his mother's call to wish him a happy birthday.
As for timestamps in an actual published, professional video,
As you noted, we see a camera in some of the shots. You assumed that was proof the MC had behind the scenes footage. Occam's razor suggests shoot included faux-BTS footage to help sell the illusion that it was real.
Here i am a bit confused, because the shoot i claim to be raw footage is the second, the 'yellow' one and it doesn't display another camera in the ingame pictures so i am pretty sure i didn't say we see a camera there (just checked my post again, and no, didn't say that).
However, what i did, was explaining the much higher visual quality of the chronologically set-in-between doggystyle picture with the ingame use of a second, digital camera offscreen. We players know why this picture has a better quality: because it is from a much later update.
If trying to explain how this visual inconsistency could have happened ingame comes back to bite me in the ass, i'll gladly drop my idea of a second camera in this shot, and state it was all recorded with just one, who miraculously improved its quality in the close-up of the doggy. There is no second digital camera.
My 'proof' for being raw footage relies not on a second camera, but on the presence of the timestamps in Edwins available video, which he watches on his computer and not on his also available TV set, like he does with his mothers casting video. So i assumed he pulled it from the internet to which it was posted by an unknown source. He very likely doesn't own this footage on DVD, like his mothers casting, because nowadays DVD drives for desktop PCs have become rare, and a physics student probably doesn't use an ancient personal computer. Double that if Victoria is telling the truth about her age, because this would mean the current ingame year is 2023 or 2024.
Explaining this occurence with faux-BTS footage and being a semi-amateur video with an unpolished feel works of course too.
(if they are really a thing)
*IF* we accept Victoria's stated age in her 'debut' video and assume the timestamp is accurate, it took place 14-15 years ago. [The game lists her as 46 currently and she says she was 31 at the time of shooting; since the video was shot in January and Week 1 starts on June 1, it would be 15 years ago if her birthday was between January and June, or 14 years ago otherwise. ] The MC just had his 22nd birthday at the end of Week 1, and we know his father died when he was 6 (i.e. 15-16 years before the game). That seems fully compatible with the MC's summary of his mom's porn career to Hana: "For a brief time after [my father died], she made a living on her back."
According to your math above 2009 + 14 years or 15 years would get us 2023 or 2024 as the current ingame year.
I'll try to show now, why i believe this is wrong.
So even if you don't follow my last two clues, the years 2018, 2019 or 2020 are backed by much more ingame information, than a single statement of a person, who
is reluctant to reveal personal information in a porn video, like she tried with her real name
is probably embarrassed to start doing porn at her age, especially if you cross-reference this with Rosies statement about her own age: "That's right. I'm practically over the hill for this kind of thing, aren't i?"
and lead to kinda awkward future 2023 (not anymore, though) or 2024 as the current ingame year.
However, if you think my proposed years are valid, it's clear that Victoria is lying about her age, with further consequences. Like for example that now her 'debut' age is close to 36 which is incidentally Rosies age. Again coincidence? I don't think so.
I think you're ignoring the actual game in favor of your preferred interpretation. AFAICT, nothing in the video clips we've seen calls the MC's story into question.
is conveniently vague enough to literally span any duration (what is brief in Edwins book?) at nearly any point in time between his father's death and the current ingame year, as long as it includes 2009 and 2010.
It's a bit like saying: "The second world war took place during the twentieth century." Which is obviously not wrong, but of limited explanatory power.
(...) even if we go with these numbers, it's not really a fair comparison. (...) So not only does the GP require a lot more money for education, they also need to wait longer before they can start earning the salary.
Doesn't change the fact, that a GP, even if they start 10 years later due their prolonged educational needs and their higher study debts, catches up and surpasses those engineers and physicist in roughly 13 years, probably even faster if they are self-employed. After that they are still earning more than them for like 20 years. Income-wise GP is the better option in the long run.
AFAIK that's the flavour text if you choose the "Helping People" motivation at the start of the game.
If you choose "Money" as motivation it's
"As they say... money isn't everything, but not having it is. Growing up watching your mother try and scrape by, you understand that as well as everyone. (...) You are fundamentally concerned with the pursuit and accumulation of wealth."
Given that she managed to raise the MC into generally well-adjusted young adult on his way to becoming a doctor, I'd say she did fairly well for a single mother with no familial support.
This caught me a bit off guard, because i thought it was more than obvious. Since this post is already huge i can't answer that right now, it deserves to be examined on its own. Sorry.
Intact doesn't mean unscathed, just that she's still a healthy woman with an acceptable life - and a son she loves very much. You say she's trying to make up for her shortcomings, but it's just as likely she's always been this way. I can be cynical, sure, but I need a solid reason not to take a mother's devotion to her son at face value.
Ehh, what?
Except the tarantula which exploits Veronicas phobia and i personally believe is just a tiny tad above what Victoria endured, the other two incidents are magnitudes tamer.
A fake interview? In which you can choose how far it goes? With a certified slut who gets off on it? Really?
And some photos showing quick flashes of boobs and pussy in a public place? Fucking on a toilet or groping in a secluded tunnel? This is stuff a lot of normal, vanilla people do to bring a little spice to their sexlife. There was no porno shoot on a public lawn inside the park.
I don't see how this relates in any way to above topic. We know that she is dangerous, but that's not part of her usual routine.
She doesn't have a whole dungeon full of her former 'toys' lined up for testing. This wouldn't go unnoticed by her companions.
